Recommendation 4

Since the event’s inception in 2018, the aims for Festival UK* 2022/Unboxed: Creativity in the UK have been vague and ripe for misinterpretation by the press and public at large. We see no evidence to refute such scepticism now. The desire for it to seemingly cater to everyone, everywhere, is a recipe for failure and investing £120 million in something when the Government, by their own admission, “did not know what it was” is an irresponsible use of public money. Despite ambitious “stretch targets” for engagement, just a few months out there remains a worrying lack of detail about how that will be achieved, particularly when it comes to touring projects internationally. We therefore intend to scrutinise how 2022’s events are leveraged overseas in our subsequent inquiry on promoting Britain abroad.